A horizontaltricolour of black, white, and green; with a red triangle based at thehoist charged with thecoat of arms above a golden wreath of laurel leaves in thefly end.
A horizontaltricolour of black, white, and green; with a red triangle based at thehoist charged with thecoat of arms above two crossed white swords in the upper hoist corner.
Theflag of Palestine (Arabic:علم فلسطين,romanized: ʿalam Filasṭīn) is atricolour of three equal horizontal stripes—black, white, and green from top to bottom—overlaid by a red triangle issuing from thehoist. It displays thepan-Arab colours, which were first combined in the current style during the 1916Arab Revolt, and represents thePalestinian people and theState of Palestine.
During theSix-Day War in 1967,Israel occupied theGaza Strip and theWest Bank, where it then outlawed the Palestinian flag, which remained until the early 1990s, when Israel and the PLO signed theOslo Accords.[4] In practice, however, the flag is still routinely confiscated by Israeli authorities throughout theIsraeli-occupied territories.[5] In 2023,Amnesty International released a report condemning new Israeli government restrictions on displays of the Palestinian flag as "an attempt to legitimize racism" by suppressing "a symbol of unity and resistance to Israel’s unlawful occupation" in thePalestinian territories.[6] Thewatermelon symbol rose to defy Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian flag.[5]
The flag used by the Arab Palestinian nationalists in the first half of the 20th century isthe flag of the 1916Arab Revolt. The origins of the flag are the subject of dispute and mythology. In one version, the colours were chosen by the Arab nationalist 'Literary Club' inIstanbul in 1909, based on the words of the 13th-century Arab poet Safi al-Din al-Hili:
Ask the high rising spears, of our aspirations Bring witness the swords, did we lose hope We are a band, honor halts our souls Of beginning with harm, those who won't harm us White are our deeds, black are our battles, Green are our fields, red are our swords.
Another version credits theYoung Arab Society, which was formed in Paris in 1911. Yet another version is that the flag was designed bySir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office. Whatever the correct story, the flag was used bySharif Hussein by 1917 at the latest and quickly became regarded as the flag of the Arab national movement in theMashriq.[7][8]
A modified version (changing the order of stripes) has been used in Palestine at least since the early 1920s[9] The Palestinian flag featured during the1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, being held in most villages and the rural areas which were declared as "liberated zones".[10] On 18 October 1948, the flag of the Arab Revolt was adopted by theAll-Palestine Government, and was recognised subsequently by theArab League as the flag of Palestine. The flag was officially adopted as the flag of the Palestinian people by thePalestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964. On 1 December of the same year, the Executive Committee of the Liberation Organization established a special system for the flag specifying its standards and dimensions, and the black and green colors replaced each other.[11] On 15 November 1988, the PLO adopted the flag as the flag of theState of Palestine.[11]
On the ground the flag became widely used since the Oslo Agreements, with the establishment of thePalestinian Authority in 1993. Today the flag is flown widely byPalestinians and their supporters.[12][13][14]
Confrontation between Israeli troops and Palestinians inGaza City during theFirst Intifada, 1987Israeli soldiers confiscating Palestinian flags inHuwara, 2022Israeli police officers confiscating Palestinian flags inSheikh Jarrah, 2023
Under Israeli law, flying the Palestinian flag is not a crime. By law, the flag is not allowed to be displayed when it is "used in support of terrorism or disrupts public order".[17] Since 2014 Israeli police have been given the authority to confiscate a flag when used in a manner that violates the law.[4] As of 2022 Israeli police has been routinely confiscating flags.[5] In January 2023, Minister of National SecurityItamar Ben-Gvir announced he had instructed the police to ban the flag's showcasing in public spaces.[18][4] Israel's restriction on the Palestinian flag were criticized byAmnesty International as an attempt to legitimize racism, adding that the Palestinian flag has been used for the past decades as "a symbol of unity and resistance to Israel’s unlawful occupation".[6] The use of thewatermelon as a Palestinian symbol has come as a response to Israel's confiscation of Palestinian flags.[5]
An unconfirmed report was published by The New York Times about Palestinians being arrested for holding slices of watermelon, since the slices bear the same colors as the Palestinian flag.[19] Palestinian artistSliman Mansour has cast doubt on the validity of these claims. A later editor's note to the article says "Given the ambiguity of the situation,The Times should either have omitted the anecdote or made it clear that the report was unconfirmed."[19]
Social media
The Palestine flag emoji (🇵🇸) (usually referred to officially as flag of the Palestinian territories[a]) was approved in 2015.[20] The use of thewatermelon as a Palestinian symbol has become common in social media in the 2020s.[5]
Other pan-Arab flags
The flag is similar to that ofSyria'sBa'ath Party, which uses the same shapes and colours but a 2:3 ratio as opposed to Palestine's 1:2, as well as the short-livedArab Federation of Iraq and Jordan (which had an equilateral triangle at the hoist). It is also similar to theFlag of Sudan, theFlag of Jordan, and to theFlag of Western Sahara, all of which draw their inspiration from theGreat Arab Revolt againstOttoman rule (1916–1918). Theflag of the Arab Revolt had the same graphic form, but the colours were arranged differently (white on the bottom, rather than in the middle).
^Sorek, Tamir (2004). "The orange and the 'Cross in the Crescent': imagining Palestine in 1929".Nations and Nationalism.10 (3):269–291.doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.2004.00167.x.
^Easterly, William (2006).The White Man's Burden. New York: Penguin. p. 238.ISBN978-1-1012-1812-9.A small sign of the artificiality of the Arab revolt is that Mark Sykes himself designed the flag of the Arabs as a combination of green, red, black, and white. Variations on this design are today the official flags of Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and the Palestinians.
^"United Nations Security Council: The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question". 2 June 2008. Archived fromthe original on 2 June 2008. Retrieved20 May 2017.) Mr. Terje Roed-Larsen, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General: "[Arafat] with the trademark kaffiyeh epitomized Palestinian identity and national aspirations, even more than the Palestinian flag or the national anthem."
^"Palestine".Flags of the World.Archived from the original on 11 January 2020. Retrieved25 March 2008.The Palestinian flag represents all Palestinian Arab aspirations regardless of party.
^Efaw, Jamie."Palestinian Psychological Operations: The First Intifada]".AmericanDiplomacy.org.Archived from the original on 6 October 2012. Retrieved25 March 2008.An example of a common, obvious symbolism came in the form of the Palestinian flag. [...] the flag and the colors transmitted the message to all target audiences the underlying theme of the entire Intifada—Palestinian nationalism. The flag, the symbol of Palestinian nationalism, was ubiquitous in the occupied territories.
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